Prophet
Muhammad Honored By the U.S. Supreme Court As One Of The Greatest Lawgivers Of The
World In 1935

As the United States Supreme Court judges sit in their
chamber, to their right, front, and the left sides are friezes depicting the 18
greatest lawgivers of the world.

The second frieze to the right features a person holding a
copy of the Quran, the Islamic holy book. It is intended to recognize Prophet
Muhammad as one of the greatest lawgivers in the world, along withMoses,
Solomon, Confucius, and Hammurabi, among others.

Here is what the Supreme Court’s website says about this
frieze:

Muhammad
(c. 570
- 632) The Prophet of Islam. He is depicted holding the Qur’an. The Qur’an
provides the primary source of Islamic Law. Prophet Muhammad’s teachings
explain and implement Qur’anic principles. The figure above is a
well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad,
and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad. Muslims generally have a strong
aversion to sculptured or pictured representations of their Prophet.

In the year in which the frieze of Prophet Muhammad was
erected, Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, and Charles Evans Hughes was the
Chief Justice. It is not known how the court deliberated on this architectural
contribution. No one at that time thought it inappropriate to include Prophet
Muhammad as one of the greatest lawgivers of the world at the chambers of the
United States Supreme Court. This was despite the fact that American society at
that time was not as diverse as it is today. Women had just acquired the right
to vote, and Japanese-Americans were about to be sent to concentration camps.

While the learned people in our country knew of the
contribution of Prophet Muhammad, our neighbors today are given regular doses
of misinformation about the Prophet and Sharia, the
path of the Prophet, more commonly described as Islamic law.

Prophet Muhammad’s Peace And
Justice Movement

Prophet Muhammad envisioned a just and peaceful society.
With a mass peace movement, he achieved this goal during his life. He hated
war and always preferred a peace treaty with his opponents, even if it was not
favorable to his and his followers’ interests. He established his first peace
sanctuary in the city of Madinah without any war whatsoever. While he did fight
to defend that peace sanctuary, it is critical to note that the total time of
actual fighting defending his people was not more than six days in his life of
63 years. He struggled to secure a peace that ensured justice and liberation
for all people, especially for those most marginalized and oppressed.

Here are some of the Prophet’s notable contributions:

He taught that there is one God
for all mankind.

He taught Muslims to believe in
all of the prophets and all divinely revealed scriptures, especially Biblical
ones.

As the Prophet established a
peace sanctuary called Madinah after his migration from Makkah, he negotiated
treaties with the Jews and the pagans of Madinah. Muslims consider these
treaties to be the first written surviving constitution in the world. The
constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, self-governance, and legal
autonomy in all matters. It called for the common defense of Madinah, and
declared the Jews, pagans, and Muslims of that treaty to be one nation, or “one
Ummah.”

He prohibited hunting and the cutting
of trees in the peace sanctuary of Madinah.

He declared killing
non-combatants to be illegal, placed severe restrictions on how warfare could
be conducted, and even paid compensation for the killing of some dogs by one of
his commanders.

The Prophet’s teachings and the
Quran are the two major sources of Sharia.
Some of his precepts include the following:

Moral behavior: personal
cleanliness; emphasis on preservation and nourishment of all life forms,
including plants and animals; rituals and spirituality of prayers; fasting and
charity; righteous conduct and good deeds; and rights of parents, children,
spouses, and neighbors.

Interpersonal relations: teaching
to enhance human relations and to avoid breaking relationships; encouraging
mutual consultation in all affairs; prohibiting bigotry and racism; and
emphasizing kindness and hospitality toward others, especially the weak and the
poor.

Financial guidelines: encouraging
charity, rights of the poor, respect for workers, and rejection of
exploitation; and circulation of wealth among all classes.

Criminal laws implementing the many
of the Ten Commandments. (The only one of the Ten Commandments not having a
parallel statement in the Quran is the one having to do with keeping the
Sabbath.) Less than two percent of Quranic verses deal with the criminal law of
Islam, which is a part of the Sharia
but not the totality of it.

The Prophet asked his judges to
make things easy for people, not difficult.

He declared all sins forgivable
as long as a person asks God’s forgiveness and that of the one who has been wronged.

The Prophet gave special emphasis
to honoring treaties, standing up for justice, and opposing oppression.

Why Muslims Often Demand Sharia In The Muslim World

In the Muslim
world, many Muslims are sick and tired of their corrupt leaders. As such, they demand
Sharia, envisioning a return to a
just and peaceful system like the time when a caliph would submit himself
without any immunity to a judge on an equal footing with his accuser. The
United Nations gives all nations the right to self-determination. That is how
even in the U.S.-brokered constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq there is
importance given to Sharia
principles.

Unfortunately,
the brutal and often biased implementation of criminal law in some Muslim
countries has given Sharia a bad
name. The Prophet would be horrified to see this merciless brutality in the
name of Islam by some Muslims.

It Is Against Sharia To Impose Sharia On Anyone!

Almost all the Sharia with which Muslim Americans deal
relates to personal religious life, ethics, morality, and human relationships.
Practicing Muslims live Sharia every
day as they pray, fast, eat Halal (permissible
in Islam) food, practice charity, raise families, and serve communities. Sharia is like Halacha, which is
practiced by Jews in America. Jews in America even operate Jewish courts in the
U.S., called Beth Din. Muslim Americans do not operate any such courts.

Muslim
Americans are subject to U.S. laws, just like any other citizens. No Muslim has
called for the replacement of the U.S. Constitution with Sharia. Sharia is neither
a constitution nor is it all law. It is actually against Sharia to impose Sharia
on anyone. Further, Sharia only
applies to Muslims, not to non-Muslims.

Muslims have
been demanding equal protection under the U.S. Constitution since their rights
are regularly violated in the current Islamophobic environment in which we are
living, where Muslims are continuously targeted and subjected to bigotry and
prejudice.

America’s Founding Fathers were wise people. Today’s
Islamophobes can learn a great deal from them. In the Treaty of Peace and
Friendship (1796) between the United States and Tripoli they stated:

“As the government of the
United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,
as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or
tranquility of Musselmen (Muslims)…”

Further
Reading:

For more Muslim
perspectives about Sharia please
visit Sharia101.org.

Please also
read Rose Wilder Lane’s Discovery of Freedom. She is the daughter of
Laura Ingalls Wilder, of Little House on the Prairie fame. She considered
Prophet Muhammad, Prophet Abraham, and the American Revolution to be the three
major sources of freedom in the world.

Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time, by Karen Armstrong, published
by HarperCollins

Muhammad: His Life Based on the
Earliest Sources, by Martin
Lings, published by Inner Traditions